From Genin to Hokage
by Lord Raihu
Summary: There had never been a team with less than three Genin in history. But that didn't stop Kakashi from failing Sakura and Sasuke when they disappointed him. Read how Naruto grows from a zero to a hero under Kakashi's guidance.
1. Chapter 1: prologue

He was a no one

A zero, zero

Now he's a hot shot

He's a hero

Composed by: Alan Menken

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Hatake Kakashi would usually describe himself as one of Konohagakure's most lazy and peace loving shinobi. But today his usually calm and hip attitude had disappeared. But it had not been that way the entire day.

The day began with his usual trip to the memorial stone. He had prayed to his former team mates, Uchiha Obito and Nohara Rin. He had also prayed to his father, his former sensei and his sensei's girlfriend.

He then decided to observe his future students. He sat on a branch high above the three Genin and that was when his bad mood began.

Uzumaki Naruto was annoying. And loud. And not too smart. Naruto spent the time either trying to court Sakura or screaming at Sasuke. He didn't observe his surrounding and Kakashi wondered how he became a Genin.

Haruno Sakura was also annoying. She was also loud. But Kakashi couldn't say she was stupid even though she certainly acted that way. She answered Naruto's advances with either her fists or screams. And her glances and blushes toward their third team mate caused Kakashi to roll his eyes. A fan girl! Kakashi hated fan girls with passion.

And then there was Uchiha Sasuke. Kakashi was very wary of him. His eyes held nothing but contempt for his neither his team mates or for the world. The copycat estimated the chance of Sasuke becoming a cold hearted killer being more than 90 %. He decided to speak with the Hokage about the last loyal Uchiha after the test.

Kakashi looked up to the sun and decided that he had waited enough. He jumped down from the tree he sat on and landed right in front of Naruto.

"Hey guys, Good morning!" He smirked behind his mask when he got two angry shouts and an annoyed grunt back.

-x-x-x-

His mood only worsened during the test. His observing of the team was confirmed instantly.

Not only did Naruto fail to hide, which his team mates at least succeeded to do, he also charged against Kakashi without a single thought in his head. Kakashi easily evaded the clumsy taijutsu and decided to end the match with his original taijutsu technique, 'A 1000 years of pain'. Naruto landed on the pond and sank. But that was when the young Genin showed a glimpse of potential.

Kage bunshin no Jutsu. The shadow clone technique. Naruto had somehow enough chakra to make twenty clones without even looking tired. Not even Kakashi could do that. But a simple kawarimi later, where he replaced himself with one of Naruto's clone, and the small of army was beaten by themselves. But when the smoke, that had appeared when the clones was destroyed, disappeared Kakashi blinked in surprise. Naruto was gone! Interesting. Kakashi had dropped on of his bell but it seemed that Naruto didn't fall for that trap. Maybe the boy had some potential after all.

He then went after Sakura. She had hid herself quiet well for a while before she decided to look for Sasuke. Kakashi quickly located broken twigs and footprints leading north. It took the former ANBU Captain five minutes before he found Sakura looking around for Sasuke. He quickly went through some hand seal and created a relatively weak genjutsu that he had learned form Kurenai, his fellow Jounin.

Kakashi felt like hitting his head on the ground when Sakura fainted. It had been a so low levelled Genjutsu she should have easily dispelled it. Well that was two of three. His next victim was Sasuke. And he didn't have to search for long, He didn't even have to search for him. Because it was Sasuke that made the first move.

Ten shuiken followed by twenty kunai attacked from behind him. Kakashi evaded most of them but the aim was so good that block a few of them with one of his own kunai. He noticed that the Uchiha had created a pretty good trap behind Kakashi. Kakashi turned his head back to the front and he was surprised when Sasuke had appeared in front of him holding his hands in a seal that announced that a fire technique was coming.

"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!" A large fireball roared toward Kakashi. The Jounin had several choices to escape the impending fire and he choose to melt into the ground. He waited a few seconds before he thrust his hand through the ground and yelled, "Doton: Shinjū Zanshu no Jutsu!"

He grabbed Sasuke's right leg and dragged him under the earth making the Uchiha's head the only park above the ground. He sensed that Sakura soon would wake up and decided to hid himself.

The first thing Sakura noticed when she woke up was Sasuke's head. "Aaaaahhhh! His severed head!" Then she fainted once more. Sasuke growled. He hated fan girls. He really, really hated fan girls. They were so useless! He tried to free himself but he couldn't move a centimetre. Then Naruto arrived.

"Hahahaha! What are you doing, Teme?" The annoying voice that belonged to his dead last team mate laughed at him. Sasuke growled. How dare that idiot laugh at him, the last loyal member of the great Uchiha clan!

It took Naruto one minute before he freed Sasuke from his earth prison. By then Sakura had also returned to the land of living.

Naruto the spent five minutes trying to get them working together against Kakashi. Kakashi, that was hiding behind one of the trees, smiled when at last one of them got the meaning behind the test. But it was like Naruto spoke to a stone. Neither Sakura nor Sasuke wanted to fight with Naruto. They felt like he would only drag them down.

Kakashi heard his clock ringing. He casually walked out from his hiding space and said only two words, "You lost!"

-x-x-x-

He then decided to give them one more chance. He tied Naruto to a tree stump and forbid the two other from giving Naruto food. He then vanished in a small whirlwind of leaves. He watched from a distance eager to see if they would disobey him. But to his great disappointment they didn't move a finger to help Naruto even though it was easy too see that the blonde was very hungry.

He sighed deeply before he appeared in front of them and said, "Naruto pass! Sakura and Sasuke don't. Naruto, meet me outside of Hokage's office tomorrow at 6 AM. Don't bee late!" He then turned to the failures.

"You two will go to the Genin pool. You will only get into teams when a team loose one of their member. Good bye!" And then he vanished leaving the three Genin stupefied.

A/N: First time in several years that I post a new story. This is a test to see if I have improved my writing.

Naruto will be Kakashi's only student only for a while. I can reveal that the two other will be canon shinobi and that it is a girl and a boy.

Since I'm not a native English speaker there will be grammar and wring faults. So I'm looking for a beta reader. Send me a PM if you're interested.


	2. Chapter 2: Light and Darkness

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

Chapter 2: Light and Darkness

Kakashi yawned as he glanced at his clock. 5:00. He had not been up this early in many, many years. He rubbed his tired eyes before making his way over to his bathroom. A quick shower later and he decided to eat a light breakfast. Kakashi smiled when he saw that he was done 5:30.

He exited his apartment. He lazily began to walk the familiar road that leads to the memorial stone.

"Minato-sensei. You can trust me with the care of Naruto. I'll do everything to make sure he grows up and become a great shinobi. Kushina-san, I'm sorry about everyone that wronged Naruto. I'm sorry that I've been to busy with my past that I forgot about Naruto. But no more! I'll make Naruto a great Hokage!"

Kakashi finished his long speech when he suddenly thought he saw two familiar humans in front of him. Kakashi blinked but they were gone when he opened his eyes again. Kakashi was sure that he had seen Minato and Kushina. Had they blessed him? Kakashi smiled gently behind his mask and decided that he wasn't needed here for a long time.

"Good bye Minato-sensei, Kushina-san, Obito, Rin-san...and good bye Father." It was time to meet his student.

-x-x-x-

"Good you are in time." Kakashi snickered when he saw Naruto jump in fright at the sudden voice.

"I was sure that you would be a few hours late!" Naruto replied back annoyed. Since Kakashi had been 3 hours late yesterday, and Iruka had told him about Kakashi's chronically lateness, that he would be late today.

"I promised someone that I would train you seriously. So I don't want any complaints when I train you. Promise me that you'll give 100 % everyday." Naruto was very confused. Who had Kakashi-sensei promised? But he quickly gave his word when he saw that Kakashi waited for him.

Kakashi opened the door to the Hokage's office and Naruto followed after excitedly. What mission could they get? Fighting dragons? Saving foreign Princesses? Killing missing-nins?

They walked up to the Hokage who was smoking his pipe while reading a scroll. The ancient leader looked up when Kakashi coughed slightly.

"Ah, Good morning Kakashi, Naruto-kun." His warm voice making Naruto feel relaxed. He loved his surrogate grandfather. The Sandaime was the reason that Naruto wanted the hat that sat on the table in front of him.

"Team 7, ready for the first mission today." Kakashi reported.

-x-x-x-

Sasuke seethed as he prowled the roads of Konoha. How dare that lowly Kakashi refuse him. How was he supposed to find a way to kill his bastard brother now? Sasuke was so angry that he didn't notice when two ninja suddenly walk up from behind him. The grabbed him and quickly entered a house.

Sasuke turned to the two ninja and prepared to kill them when he paused. They had ANBU cloaks and ANBU masks. But he also saw a third man. He was an old man covered partially in bandages. Sasuke knew of him. Shimura Danzō, one of the most dangerous shinobi in Konoha.

"What do you want, old man?" Sasuke asked very impolitely. The two ANBU didn't like that and one of the punched him hard in the face. Sasuke flew back from the force and moaned in pain when he hit the wall. The same ANBU grabbed Sasuke's hair and pulled him up.

"You are only allowed to call him Danzō-sama." The emotionless voice behind the mask almost made Sasuke cringe. Didn't he have any emotion at all? Danzō made a hand sign and the ANBU released the boy.

"Do you want power to kill Itachi?" Danzō asked and pulled the bandages from his right eye. Sasuke gasped when he saw that Danzō had a sharingan eye. How was that possible. "Are you interested?" Danzō continued and Sasuke grudgingly nodded. The old man smiled grimly at that and exited the house. Sasuke and the two ANBU followed him.

-x-x-x-

Naruto screamed helplessly when the four Inuzuka dogs that he walked with suddenly raced each other chasing a mewing cat. The cat dived into an alley. The dogs barked happily thinking that they had captured the cat. But their excited barks quickly transformed into whimpers when they saw there now suddenly were twenty cats. And they were not innocent cats. These cats were covered in scars and their eyes promised hell to the now very scared dogs.

-x-x-x-

Naruto groaned as he and Kakashi arrived at training ground 15. Most of Naruto's scars from his mission were healed but he was still sore. He would never forget his first D-mission.

Naruto observed the training ground. It was similar to most of Konoha's training grounds. It had a small pond, a small area where you could train taijutsu and other jutsu but the rest of the ground was covered in forest.

"It is time for me to seriously test you, Naruto. We will start with your taijutsu, before covering ninjutsu, genjutsu, intelligence, strength, speed, stamina and seals. These tests will probably take the whole day. I'll mark down your result and decide your training after that. Now take your taijutsu form!"

-x-x-x-

Six hours later and the test were finally done. Kakashi marked the last result and looked at the report.

Name: Uzumaki Naruto

Age: 12

Rank: Genin

Ninjutsu: 2

Taijutsu: 0,5

Genjutsu: 0,5

Intelligence: 2

Strength: 2

Speed: 4

Stamina: 4

Hand seals: 1

Total: 16/40

One thing was clear. Kakashi, and Naruto, had lots of training to do before the orange prankster could even think about becoming a Hokage.

"You've done well today, Naruto. I'll treat you to ONE ramen as a reward." Kakashi said to a really tired Naruto. Naruto jumped up from the ground, where he had lain for ten minutes, and started to run to Ramen Ichiraku. He really liked Kakashi. He was a hard but fair Sensei.

-x-x-x-

Uchiha Sasuke hated Danzō. How dare Danzō steal the prized sharingan eyes from his dead clansmen? Danzō suddenly attacked Sasuke with his wooden sword and whacked it on the Uchiha's head.

"I felt anger from you, young Uchiha. You must release your emotion. The perfect shinobi is one without any emotion. Remember? No emotion!" Sasuke twitched his eyes when Danzō lectured him as if he was a child.

' _You may be the master now, Danzō. But I'll kill you one day. Then I'll kill the rest of this god forsaken village before I finally can kill Itachi. One day, Hahahaha."_ Sasuke's inner rumbling were finished when Danzō hit him again. Damn that old fossil!

-x-x-x-

"I'll not teach you any kind of taijutsu style. I've talked to Jiraiya-sama and he told me that you will learn the Frog Kata later. So I'll just repair the damage done by your former teachers and correct your academy taijutsu." Kakashi explained the next day while Naruto was stretching. Naruto was disappointed and nearly shouted at his sensei before he remembered that Kakashi wanted no complaints. So he shut his mouth and nodded.

"Good, now punch with your right hand," Naruto punched the air. "That's not good. You're wasting too much movement. Your right leg should be wider and your left foot should point in and not out."

Naruto frowned. Would that really made so much difference? But he did as he was ordered and he gaped after he punched again. The punch felt so much better and stronger even though he only changed his stance a little. Kakashi nodded in approval. Better but still far from good.

"Who is this Jiraiya?" Naruto asked while Kakashi corrected his stance again.

"Jiraiya is one of the senin. He is the last student Hokage-sama trained and he trained the fourth Hokage. He is also our only master of fūinjutsu, the art of sealing. Widen your stance a bit more and use your hip more when you punch."

The taijutsu lesson lasted for half a day but it wasn't wasted time. Naruto's taijutsu had grown a lot. Naruto was currently on the ground gasping for breaths after a brutal ten minutes no-rest taijutsu spar. The scarecrow decided it was time for Naruto to find out the secret about the Shadow clones.

"Have you realized that you receive your clones' memories when they are destroyed, Naruto?" He got a negative answer to the question."Think. What kind of advantage does that give you?"

Naruto thought hard for a moment before it came to him.

"So I can send clones to read books while I train? What about using clones to train my taijutsu?" Kakashi was happy that Naruto found out the advantage himself.

"Yes. You should send your clones to read books everyday. Books about battle tactics, politics, etiquette-" He chuckled when he saw Naruto's disgusted expression. "Do you still want to be Hokage?" Naruto quickly nodded several times while he failed to see what that had to do with etiquette. Kakashi continued his explanation.

"What do you think will happen if we have a Hokage with no etiquette at all? You will insult a fellow Kage quickly and thus causing a war between his or hers village and yours. Tens of thousand would probably die in each village. All because of your lack of manner. Do you want that?"

Naruto's usual bright smile was gone while he thought of what his sensei had told him. He wants to become a Hokage. He don't want thousands of human lives dead because of him. It was an easy decision. It was a necessary evil reading lots of boring books.

"I'll follow your to the library and check out the books you should read. Then I want you to create ten clones every morning and have them read your books...ah did you see that? Wasn't that Tora escaping from Madamu Shijimi? Looks like we have a new D-mission." Naruto groaned. Chasing Tora while being this tired? What a nightmare!

-x-x-x-

Kakashi entered the room that the Council used when they had a meeting. The room had a table, two small couches and two chairs. The Hokage sat on one of the couches while elder Utatane Koharu sat on the other opposite him. Mitokado Homura sat one of the chair while the second was empty. Four cups filled with expensive tea were on the table. Kakashi bowed deeply to the three legendary shinobi before he sat on the empty chair.

The ever stern Homura began the meeting. "Was it really neccicery dropping the Uchiha? I never liked him, unlike many of our civilians and quiet few of our shinobi comrades, but now he is gone... and I don't like the possibility that Danzō have him."

That surprised Kakashi. He didn't knew that Sasuke was gone. And if he joined Danzō... troublesome like a certain Nara would say.

"I tried to pass him and Sakura. But I'm afraid that I wouldn't be able to stop the darkness that is growing in Sasuke. I've heard rumours that several academy students have disappeared after they were last seen near the Uchiha compound. I'm not saying that rumours are true but what if..." Kakashi left the sentence hanging in the air.

The three elders didn't seem surprised hearing the rumour, leaving Kakashi correctly thinking that they also had heard of it.

"Well... do we know that Danzō has the Uchiha?" Koharu was usually a soft speaking former kunoichi who is enjoying spoiling her grandchildren. But all the softness was gone when she spoke of Danzō, She had never liked him and had tried to remove him from Konoha may times in the past. But Sarutobi had always blocked her motions because he saw Danzō as his brother. A nasty brother, but a brother nonetheless.

"No, and we can't just get the information from him. Only Ibiki is more used to torture after all. We can only hope that our ANBU succeeds in locating Sasuke. But enough of that. How is your training with Naruto going?" Sarutobi asked eagerly. He always enjoyed hearing good new about Naruto, who he saw as a grandson.

"It has only been two days but I'm amazed. He's slightly more intelligent than the academy report said. He also promised to severely limit his pranking and concentrating to become a better shinobi. I have a report that you can read, that I creating when I tested him." Kakashi ran a finger over a seal that he had on his left palm and unsealed his report. He gave it first to the Hokage, who read it carefully in silence before passing over to Homura.

"You really think that the class clown has the potential of surpassing his father, the fourth Hokage?" Homura asked in disbelief. Kakashi only replied with a yes, causing Homura to brood in silence.

"What about Haruno Sakura? You gave your reason that you failed Sasuke, but what about Sakura?" Sarutobi asked while Koharu was reading. Kakashi thought for a minute before answering.

"She has potential, no doubt about that. Her intelligence and the report from the academy about her chakra control... she has the potential to become a genjutsu mistress, a medic or maybe even a seal mistress. But for now it is only potential. And what would happen if I only failed Sasuke. She would only see the ghost of Sasuke and would surely only blame and abuse Naruto. She would only succeed in halting Naruto's potential." Kakashi breathed in hard after his long explanation.

The three elder stared at him for a long second before they nodded, assuring Kakashi that he had made the right call. Sarutobi ended the meeting after that.

"I only hope that we can find a good second and third genin to make your team complete. But we don't have the right on available for now. Continue training Naruto the way your are doing, Kakashi. Your new persona fits you much better than your former lazy self. You would make a good Hokage!" Sarutobi said after they exited the room.

"Not a chance, Hokage-sama. The paperwork!" Kakashi said and he and Sarutobi shuddered, thinking of every Kage's greatest enemy.

-x-x-x-

Momochi Zabuza growled as he decapitated another hunter nin from Kirigakure. He was slowly but steadily becoming tired of his life as a hunted criminal. This was the fifth assassination attempt this week and they had all failed of course. He couldn't figure out why that damned Yagura never sent more than one hunter nin at the same time.

He had to find a new life for both him and Haku. He had nearly accepted a contract from a lowly scum named Gatō but had instead torn the contract in half after seeing the money he was promised. Was he, a former Seven Ninja Swordsman, worth only 50 000 ryō? What an insult!

Zabuza entered the cabin that he and Haku had broken into yesterday. He smiled under his bandages as he spotted Haku sleeping. Haku was Zabuza's only light in a very dark world and he would do everything to protect the feminine boy. Maybe Konohagakure was interested in a skilled swordsman and a strong bloodline?

A:N/ Whew finally done with the chapter! Good, bad or just worth a shrug? Tell me what you think!

15 reviews, 57 favourites and 108 followers! I'm amazed! The best response that I ever have got. Thank you all!

Time for a different Wave mission next chapter.


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